


A Life More Ordinary

by indiefic



Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator - All Media Types, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Binge Drinking, Derek Reese is forced to use public transportation, Gen, Recreational Drug Use, When Sarah Connor decides to get blitzed she doesn't go halfway, stalking old flames, time travel mindfucks, wild speculation on what might have been
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4438973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiefic/pseuds/indiefic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes even Sarah Connor longs for things.</p><p>Derek finally gets a look at some of the things that haunt the ever stoic Sarah Connor and he's not sure he likes it.  And she already drank most of the vodka.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life More Ordinary

Sarah didn’t bother looking over as the Jeep’s passenger door opened and somebody climbed inside. It wasn’t that she expected company. She didn’t. Nobody was supposed to know where she was. But Sarah didn’t particularly care if Skynet was here to kill her or not. Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em all. She was so sick of this bullshit.

Derek sat in silence, waiting for Sarah to explain. After a few minutes, he realized she had no intention of explaining. That pissed him off. It was bad enough that John took off in the truck to go make googly eyes at his girlfriend. Without transportation, it took Derek an ungodly amount of time to get across town in public transportation to the location the Jeep’s GPS was reporting.

He expected to find Sarah beating the crap out of somebody or breaking and entering or maybe even having some clandestine rendezvous with Dixon or Ellison or some other idiot stupid enough to think they could save Sarah Connor from herself. But no, what he found was Sarah Connor sitting in the Jeep on some anonymous residential street with absolutely no strategic or tactical significance, stinking drunk. The smell when he opened the door about knocked him over. He’d never known Sarah to drink, but apparently she didn’t go halfway on anything.

After ten minutes, he finally snapped. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Sarah brought the vodka bottle up to her lips and took another long drink, enjoying the way it burned down her throat. “Surveillance.”

He was incredulous. “On Stan Stan the Car Man? I can guarantee you Skynet doesn’t want anything to do with the Used Car King of L.A.” Stan Stan the Car Man had the single most obnoxious commercials Los Angeles and he was widely despised every person with eyes and ears. Luckily, it didn’t seem to hurt his sales much.

Sarah took another drink. “Stanley Morsky. 11895 Kentwood Avenue. He’s separated from his third wife, Anabell, and currently living with his new girlfriend, Jordyn. He has three kids and a dog.”

Shaking his head, Derek swiped the vodka out of her hand and stared at the bottle for a minute before downing half of what was left in a few long swallows. If they were surveilling Stan Stan, he was going to need to be drunk too. “Why do we give a shit about Stan Stan the Car Man and his girlfriend?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“We don’t.”

Reaching over, Derek grabbed the mostly empty bottle of pills off the dashboard. “Valium?” he read. “Jesus, Sarah. All the shit we need to do and no one in that fucking house has their head in the game. John’s out finger fucking his girlfriend and you’re stalking Stan Stan. Judgment Day isn’t a fucking joke. It’s real. It’s - ”

Turning, Sarah glared at him, interrupting. “Jesse busy tonight? She getting a pedicure? Or maybe shopping for a new bikini? Shouldn’t you be feeding her grapes or curling up and watching Must See TV in her suite?”

Derek’s lips tightened into a thin line.

Sarah smiled a nasty smile. “Don’t you fucking lecture me about having my head in the game. Six hour runs and you don’t sleep at the house because you don’t have your own room? What a fucking joke. You suck at discrete, Reese. I’ve known about your girlfriend for weeks. Jesse was the diamond guy …” she snorted. “As much as you lie, you should be better at it.”

“Yeah, you’re not exactly great with secrets either,” he snapped. “I know Kyle was John’s father.”

Sarah turned back to survey the McMansion where Stan Stan the Car Man lived with his girlfriend. “Bravo,” she said sardonically. “Well done. You recognized your own nephew. You really are great at covert ops. No wonder John sent you back.”

“You bitch – “

Sarah shifted in her seat, turning her torso toward him, bracing her right arm against her seat and her left against the steering wheel. “You always get so fucking close,” she snapped. “So close. And yet,” she motioned erratically with her hands, “so far. You think John’s being a whiney little bitch because he had to see mommy kill a man. Fuck you, Reese. I wish it was me. I wish I’d killed him.” She took a deep breath, trying to stop her chest from heaving. “I didn’t kill Sarkissian. John did. He broke his fucking neck with his bare hands.”

Derek fell silent, staring at her. Sarah turned away, staring blindly out the windshield. The lump in her throat burned painfully and she swallowed thickly, trying to keep it together. It usually wasn’t a problem, but the downside of the booze and meds was that she didn’t have as much control as normal.

“Damn,” he swore, looking at the valium bottle again. “Damn.”

She laughed mirthlessly. “He blames me. He says I didn’t protect him.”

“Fuck,” Derek cursed, his head lolling forward. “Sarah you didn’t fuck up. John’s a – “

“A kid!” Sarah snapped, glaring at him. “A sixteen year old kid. And I’m his mother and it’s my job to protect him and I didn’t.” She was shaking, her eyes shiny.

“He’s John Connor,” Derek said carefully. “He could never be just a kid.”

Snorting, Sarah turned staring out her window, sinking back in the driver’s seat, curling in on herself. “Michael, Jason and Stephanie. Those are the names of Stan Morsky’s kids – his normal, boring, spoiled brat children who never had to kill someone with their bare hands.”

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, dizzy from the change of topics. Maybe Sarah really was half nuts. “Again, why the fuck do we care about Stan Stan the Car Man?”

“Because he’s who I was supposed to be with that night,” Sarah said quietly.

“What night?”

“The night Kyle found me,” she said softly. “I was supposed to have a date with Stan, but he cancelled, so I went out and Kyle followed me. I thought he was trying to kill me. But then the Terminator found me and Kyle saved me and …”

Silence hung in the car as the minutes stretched out. Sarah hadn’t thought about that night in a long, long time. She sniffled loudly. “John’s gone.”

Derek shrugged. “He’s probably parked at the mall making out in the back of my truck.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Derek fell silent because, yeah, he knew what she meant. Sarah was losing her son. He was growing into a man. Not just any man though, the man who would lead the human resistance. And it was a bumpy ride. Sarkissian was the first of what would undoubtedly be many casualties. “Do you wish you’d been with Stan Stan the Car Man that night?”

Sarah crossed her arms over her chest. “The machine would have killed us both.”

Derek laughed, astounded at the absurdity of the conversation. “You didn’t want to die staring deep into Stan Stan’s beady little eyes while he tried to get to second base in his Camaro?”

Sarah gave Derek a withering look. “It was a Porsche.”

“I stand corrected,” Derek said with a smile.

Sarah laughed despite her foul mood. It was a rather amusing thought. The terminator would have made short work of Stan Stan. It would have spared the entire city of Los Angeles the horror of having to watch those damn commercials. What was the karmic surplus on something like that? She tried to glare at Derek. “Stan wouldn’t have gotten to second base. I was a good girl.”

Now it was Derek’s turn to snort. “Yeah right. John’s existence is pretty convincing proof that you do a whole lot more than kiss on the first date.”

Sarah smacked him in the shoulder. “There were extenuating circumstances,” she said. “Life in peril.”

“Your life’s been in peril plenty around me,” he said, “and it’s like pulling teeth to get a civil word out of you most days.”

She frowned at him. “Your brother was more charming than you.”

Derek gaped at her, offended. “No he wasn’t. Kyle was terrible with girls. Couldn't manage more than three words.”

Sarah turned back to look out the windshield, her expression wistful. Derek was right. Kyle had been terrible with girls. “He was sweet.”

Derek watched her, shocked at how much younger she seemed, if only for a moment. “Do you wish it was you in there with Stan Stan and someone else out here worrying about the future?”

Sarah considered the question for a moment before turning to look at Derek. “Some days, yes.”

“And other days,” he prompted.

“I see Stan Stan on TV and thank god I never had to see him naked.”

Derek closed his eyes in mock pain. “I’m never going to get that mental image out of my head, Connor.”

“You’re welcome,” she said with a smile.

“You’re drunk.”

“Yes I am.”

“I’m taking you home.”

***

[End]


End file.
